Super-Bright Explosion Seen on the Moon

[dipsydoodle]

Credit NASA

If you were looking up at the Moon on March 17, 2013 at 03:50:55 UTC, you might have seen one of the brightest “lunar flashes” ever witnessed. And it would have been visible with just the naked eye.

“On March 17, 2013, an object about the size of a small boulder hit the lunar surface in Mare Imbrium,” says Bill Cooke of NASA’s Meteoroid Environment Office. “It exploded in a flash nearly 10 times as bright as anything we’ve ever seen before.”

The scientists estimate that the flash came from a 40 kg meteoroid measuring 0.3 to 0.4 meters wide hitting the Moon, likely traveling about 90,000 km/hr (56,000 mph.) The resulting explosion packed as much punch as 5 tons of TNT.

(FYI, lunar meteors hit the ground with so much kinetic energy that they don’t require an oxygen atmosphere to create a visible explosion. The flash of light comes not from combustion but rather from the thermal glow of molten rock and hot vapors at the impact site.)

Read more: http://www.universetoday.com/102214/super-bright-explosion-seen-on-the-moon/#ixzz2TdHk7dns

[Judi Lynn]

1. Video: NASA records largest explosion on the Moon ever

Video: NASA records largest explosion on the Moon ever
Adario Strange
Friday, May 17, 2013 - 3:28pm

Keeping track of all the large asteroids floating around space with the potential to end all life on Earth is a full-time job. But while the primary motive for keeping a diligent eye on the sky is the preservation of Earth, every now and then we catch a remarkable event on another planetary body.

On March 17, NASA researchers monitoring the Moon recorded its largest meteor impact ever, since monitoring began back in 2005. The asteroid is said to have been about the size of a small boulder and landed in the Mare Imbrium region of the Moon. The explosive impact was so great that it could have been viewed with the naked eye from Earth for just a second.

Although close-up images of the impact site have yet to be acquired, NASA believes the impact crater could be as much as 20 meters wide, and they've even drafted an artist's conception (see above) of what the initial strike may have looked like.

According to NASA and researchers at the University of Toronto, the Moon strike occurred around the same time that Earth was experiencing heavier than normal meteorite activity. You can check out the full NASA report, which includes footage of the meteor strike, in the video below.

http://www.dvice.com/2013-5-17/video-nasa-records-largest-explosion-moon-ever

[sigmasix]

2. soon this knowledge will be outlawed

As more and more teabaggers and republicans attack science and education, these types of findings will become rare until the extinction of the American scientific community. As the right wing continues to carry out thier hit-job on America, our scientists will encounter more partisan attempts at revising scientific truths and the destruction of future American scientists.
Why do republicans and teabaggers believe that thier ignorance about a subject should be treated the same as legitimate knowledge. I realize that certain emotional disorders regularly appear in right wing personality types that prevents right wingers from showing mature respect for education and knowledge; these disorders include hard core narccisism and underdeveloped empathic tools coupled with a paranoid outlook. American scientists and students deserve more than the willfully ignorant antiscience agenda of the Anti-American right wing extremists.

Go science!

[BlancheSplanchnik]

3. what you said!

And you said it well!

[aristocles]

4. What prompted this? Certainly not the mere reporting of a lunar event? nt

[hodger]

8. Spot on sigmasix

So well put indeed. I wish I could remove my anger at such numbsculls that crap on science to suit their phony-baloney religion politics. Thanks for the excellent sentiments.

[sigmasix]

9. You're welcome NT

[Katashi_itto]

5. Damn, Rick Perry Made another deal for a Fertilizer plant and it just went bad.

[love_katz]

7. DUzy!

[nikto]

6. It was a UFO-crash.

They swerved to avoid Elvis's ship, and...boom.